Win with customer experience in the new normal

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customer experience,

Brand Spur Nigeria recently held a webinar event in its series tagged: “Customer Centricity as an advantage in the New Normal” to show businesses how to win their customers by focusing on giving them unique experiences all the time.

customer experience,
Mr Fikayo Aremu, Director, Fintech and Digital Insights Division, Kantar

According to the speaker, Mr Fikayo Aremu, Director, Fintech and Digital Insights Division at Kantar, COVID-19 has disrupted our world and changed businesses, with 64% of Nigerians claiming it to have impacted their day-to-day lives.

“The pandemic has threatened the economy. Nigeria consumer confidence has plummeted between March and June. The pandemic has pushed 5million more Nigerians into extreme poverty,” he added.

Fikayo explained how the pandemic has affected a chunk of household in Nigeria with about 77% consumers complaining of its impact on their incomes.

Meanwhile, FMCG and technology categories like healthcare, consumer staples and food delivery, Telecoms, Renewable and Utilities witnessed limited impact because of their online activities which grew by 40%, While the affected sectors include Education, commercial aerospace, air and travels, insurance carriers, oil and gas, automotive, etc with more than 22% decline.

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A poll conducted by the participants on what the people are concerned about in the pandemic shows that 31% mentioned health, 65% about economic outlook(recovery time, impact on jobs) and 72% are becoming more proactive on their financial planning.

Fikayo also gave an analysis of online spending during lockdown through a chat. In it, online spending in e-commerce was 6x higher more than it used to be, and that customers intend to increase online purchases by 33%.

On the transaction, the speaker said there was huge penetration for POS usage during the COVID-19 period especially between March and May with N350 billion value transactions when banks were shut.

Reacting to the polls attempted by the participants on customer experiences, Mr Fikayo highlighted the three things a business owner must do to satisfy customer experiences and are: meeting customers where they are, helping customers master their everyday lives, and humanizing the experiences of their customers.

“Organizations should personalize services to customers, know customers? habits, be customer, meet their customers where they are (shift to digital), help them master their everyday lives so as to serve them judiciously and for their products to be registered in customers’ minds always,” he corroborated.

Furthermore, Fikayo admonishes business owners to create positive emotions in their customers’ interactions, collect data of customers’ experiences, determine the right balance between offline and online channels in one’s customers’ journeys, deliver frictionless customers’ experiences in one’s micro journeys, and build capabilities for personalized customers’ experiences in every customers’ journey.

Attempting a question on the impact of COVID-19 on the financial service sector in Nigeria, Fikayo said “one thing we saw during COVID-19 pandemic was access to funds and there was a huge impact on the experience. Some banks were unable to manage their customers. Although, after some times, many banks were coming up with innovative products to meet the demand of their customers, among which is the automated voice activation done by Zenith Bank.

“It should have been before now, we needn’t have COVID-19 before such can come to play, it is simply a game of the best bank with the best innovation wins,” he retorted.

To this end, Fikayo explained that understanding the need of consumers and how it ties to what one provides is a key thing to note in the post-COVID-19 business era. That is, understanding the micro-movements across the customer’s journey.

He elaborated, saying, “this will help a business owner know what the customers want at intervals. It is possible to keep up with the new era, one just has to sit down and plan how to react to the changes in the market.”

BRAND SPUR